The Many Shades of Blue
by Etaleah
Summary: There's just no such thing as good old-fashioned hard work when Fubuki's around.


**Set in season four after Ryo has returned to the Academia. **

"A coloring book? Really?" Ryo shook his head in disgust as Fubuki grinned down at him eagerly.

"Yup! I found it at the academia gift shop. And it was on sale! Tome-san says hardly anyone buys them."

"Gee, I wonder why," Ryo replied, eyeing the cover disdainfully.

"I thought it'd be the perfect thing to keep us entertained during another boring day at the office!" Fubuki said cheerfully, plopping himself down into his favorite swivel chair.

"Fubuki, this isn't playtime. Samejima gave us this job because he thinks we're good workers, and he expects us to work."

"And we will! When the phones ring, we'll answer them. When he needs us to file papers, we'll file them. If someone comes in, we'll help them. But right now there's nothing for us to do except sit here. Why not have a little fun doing it?"

"We're not getting paid to have fun," Ryo reminded him. Fubuki ignored him and opened the coloring book, which contained pictures of famous duel monsters used by pros such as Kaiba Seto and Mutou Yuugi as well as pictures of the duelists themselves. "Besides, you don't even have anything to color with."

Fubuki winked at his friend and promptly reached into his knapsack, retrieving, much to Ryo's chagrin, a ninety-nine pack of brand new crayons, complete with a sharpener. "These were on sale, too," he replied smugly.

Ryo rolled his eyes. Fubuki could be so childish sometimes. What if someone came in and saw them? They were supposed to be the elite students (or, in his case, the former Kaiser) and temporary receptionists for the most esteemed dueling university in the world (the former receptionist had quit and fled the island shortly after the alternate dimension affair), and how would it look if one of those receptionists had a coloring book in front of him?

Ryo hadn't wanted this job, as it required him to deal with people. In truth, he'd only taken it because with his heart acting up, he couldn't leave the island yet, and therefore had nothing better to do during the days when everyone else was in class. Well, that and Samejima had asked him to. He'd seemed desperate, and a part of Ryo-a small part-felt a little bad for the way he'd treated his teacher the last time they'd met in that mountaintop dojo.

Fubuki had followed soon after, as he was always in need of extra cash because of his many girlfriends, so for the past couple of weeks, he had come whenever he had a free moment. Though during that time, or at least it seemed to Ryo, he tended to fool around more often than he worked. Answering the phone in different accents, doodling on important paperwork….

"Ryo?" Ryo's head snapped up. "You wanna color with me? There's plenty of crayons here for both of us."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Aw, why not? It's not like you're doing anything."

"Fubuki, those things are for five-year-olds."

"Nonsense! This Jumbo Creative Kids' Coloring Book is in no way for five-year-olds!" Ryo raised an eyebrow. "Okay, maybe it is, but I'm bored! I can't just glare at a wall for six hours like you can! I have needs!"

"I can understand the need for entertainment, but couldn't you have invested in something a bit more…mature?"

"Like what?" Fubuki asked, puzzled. Ryo had to admit he couldn't think of anything off the top of his head; other than dueling, the academia had few forms of entertainment. Fubuki took this opportunity to stick out his lower lip in a cute pout.

"Color with me! Please?"

"No."

"Aw, come on!"

"You color and I'll work."

Fubuki stared into Ryo's face with the biggest puppy-dog eyes he could muster. "Ryo, you're not really gonna make me color all by myself, are you?"

"Yes."

"Color with me!"

"No."

"Yes!"

"No."

"Yes!"

"No."

"Pleeeeeeeaaaase?" He grabbed Ryo's shoulders and started shaking him. "Pretty please with Cyber End Dragon on top? And Cyber Dark Horn, and Cyber Dark Keel, and Cyber Dark Dragon, and-"

"Enough already!" Ryo shoved Fubuki away from him. "Fine, I'll color," he growled.

"Yay!" Fubuki's face lit up like a Christmas tree. "Trust me, you'll love it, Ryo."

"Somehow I doubt that," Ryo mumbled. Fubuki swiveled his chair closer to Ryo and put the coloring book and crayons in between them.

"Go on, start coloring. You know you want to," Fubuki teased. Ryo glared at him and eyed the book reluctantly. After musing over the choice of colors, he selected a dark blue crayon and began to shade in the fins of Kaiser Seahorse. Fubuki followed suit and grabbed a purple crayon.

The hours ticked by quickly as the two boys filled the pages with color. Dark Magician Girl, Blue Eyes White Dragon, the Egyptian Gods for which the school dorms were named, and so on. They had to stop several times to answer the phone, but other than that, no one bothered them. Ryo was just finishing up Dark Magician when he looked over at what Fubuki was coloring and did a double take. Fubuki, who was never one to follow tradition, was currently using a hot pink crayon to fill in the lines of Mutou Yuugi's hair. Ryo looked the picture over and noticed that the King of Games had orange eyes, pink hair with purple highlights, blue skin, and olive clothing.

"Um…Fubuki?"

"Yeah?"

"You do know that's not what Mutou Yuugi looks like, right?"

"So?"

"So why are you making him look different?"

"It's part of the fun! Anybody could color him the way he normally looks. It takes a true artistic vision to make him look like this." He eyed Ryo's picture, which had been filled in neatly with the same colors that appeared on the actual cards made by Industrial Illusions. "You should learn to cut loose, Ryo. Have some fun once in a while." He glanced at the clock. "I gotta go, I don't want to be late for my date with my sweet little blonde." He stood up and grabbed his knapsack.

"Hey, aren't you gonna take this with you?" Ryo pointed to the coloring book.

"No." Fubuki smirked. "I'll leave it for you to enjoy. Oh, don't look at me like that, Ryo, you know you liked it."

"It was…amusing," Ryo replied grudgingly. Fubuki grinned wickedly and left. Ryo glanced at the clock. He still had an hour left until his shift was over. At least now that Fubuki was gone, he wouldn't be forced to color anymore. He could just sit there and…well, one more page couldn't hurt. He turned the page and nearly gasped. A pro league duelist glared back at him with icy green eyes.

Marufuji Ryo. Back from when he was an undefeated pro.

A small smile graced Ryo's face as he scanned the box for a blue crayon to fill in his hair and the trimmings on his uniform. The problem was, there were about a million different blues. Navy, robin's egg, cerulean, cornflower, indigo, sapphire, aquamarine, violet blue, blue green, sky blue, turquoise, the list went on and on. Ryo tested all of them by making small stray marks on the page, but none of them seemed to match the actual color of his hair. The only one that came close was…blue. Just plain old regular blue.

For some reason Ryo couldn't explain, this disappointed him. That was all he was, just a boring old blue with nothing special about it. Nothing to distinguish it from the others. He sighed and slowly began coloring in his hair. He was so lost in thought that he didn't even notice a man leaning over the front of the desk.

"A coloring book, huh?" Ryo looked up, startled. A short man with a kindly face was smiling down at him. "I used to have those when I was a kid. They're fun, aren't they?"

"Um, yeah," Ryo answered, embarrassed. He quickly closed the book and shoved it aside. "Anything I can help you with?"

The man asked a few questions about the academy and Ryo answered them respectfully. For some reason, the man looked familiar, though he wasn't quite sure why.

"Mind if I take a look?" he asked, gesturing to the coloring book.

"Uh, sure," Ryo shrugged, handing it to him. He flipped through the pages, smiling.

"Hmm…Dark Magician, Blue Eyes, hey, what's this?" He flipped to the page of the wacky-looking Mutou Yuugi. The man grinned widely and laughed.

"I didn't do that one," Ryo said quickly. "My friend did."

The man chuckled and handed the book back to Ryo. "Your friend sounds like a pretty good artist." He turned to leave, then stopped at the door and grinned at Ryo. "Ya know, I think I look pretty good with pink hair."

He let the door shut behind him, leaving Ryo standing there with his mouth wide open.


End file.
